Kevin Durant, Suns continue crunch-time brilliance with win over Heat

PHOENIX — For a game full of complexities and nuance, NBA basketball does not have to be complicated, even at the tightest moments.

The Phoenix Suns did two incredibly simple things on the same, repeated play in crunch time to get Kevin Durant the ball in a 115-112 win over the Miami Heat on Wednesday. And that was all they had to do.

“Sometimes, you just gotta get outta the way of the players,” Suns head coach Mike Budenholzer said. “Try and allow them to be their best.”

Great NBA teams are never afraid to spam a play call that is working, and with the switches the Heat were giving up, the Suns were having Bradley Beal set a screen on Tyus Jones to get Tyler Herro defending the ball. From there, Durant put one down on Herro to either make Herro defend him or force his defender Haywood Highsmith to recover back to him.

Durant hit his patented one-legged fadeaway over Herro to put the Suns up five at 2:53 to go. He then missed a deep 3 before a reset off that same play had Durant find room on the elbow moving toward the baseline. That directly followed Highsmith coming over to get Herro off Durant, which that plus the pass let Durant take a fadeaway leaner in rhythm. Credit to Devin Booker for the feed so Durant could step into his shot while Highsmith was containing the other side on his recovery.

“He’s an all-world passer who can make those reads at any time,” Durant said of Booker’s feed. “Unselfish, at the end of the game, wanting to get me the ball.”

Miami was done allowing Herro to be put in that position, so on the next go, Highsmith had to contain Jones’ driving lane before returning to Durant. That was too much room to cover and Durant drew a foul on Highsmith’s closeout for free throws.

With under 35 seconds left and the Suns up two, they went back to the well one last time. Highsmith this time did a much better job tagging back to Durant. But Durant caught the ball at the top of the key, repositioned slightly in the triple threat and just rose up over him in the most Kevin Durant shot you’ll ever see. Money.

A look at all three buckets:

SLIM REAPER SHUTS THE DOOR.

Bucket after bucket after bucket for KD late to secure 6 straight wins for the @Suns! pic.twitter.com/pE9SsrykWZ

— NBA (@NBA) November 7, 2024

Free throw and fouling hi-jinx closed it out from there. Miami actually had a chance to tie it down three when Booker’s attempt at a foul didn’t get called. But the Heat’s pass off that took Jimmy Butler inside the 3-point line with three seconds remaining because of a jumping Royce O’Neale. By the time Butler stepped back to the line, O’Neale came flying in for a second big-time hustle play in just a few seconds to force a pass that ended the game.

pic.twitter.com/kpZmGBs3tg

— Oh Yes I did (@OhYesIdid24) November 7, 2024

Durant is now shooting 10-for-15 in clutch time this season, meaning the last five minutes when it is a five-point game or less. Phoenix is 6-0 in these games, the only NBA team with at least five such victories.

“I think these moments are good, we’ve been in a lot of tight, close games,” Durant said. “I’m sure Suns fans are on edge every game but I think it’s good for our team that we can play these fourth quarter games and get an understanding for what it’s like in crunch time. It’s a good win for us.”

The Suns were 20-21 in clutch games last season and the execution late is a dramatic reversal from the fourth quarter night terrors a year prior.

“I don’t wanna compare it to last year,” Booker said. “I feel like we’re organized, we’re finding what works and Kevin Durant is a [expletive] to deal with.”

Durant scored 23 of his 32 points in the second half with eight rebounds, three assists and six turnovers. Two of those turnovers came in a mid-third quarter segment when the game really got away from Phoenix. It trailed by 15 and was starting to get lackadaisical defensively before a 15-3 surge in the last 2:54 of the period put the Suns back within three.

“That was huge,” Durant said of the end of the third quarter. “I think that was the game right there. … We cut that lead pretty quickly. Turnovers kept them in the game. They had 20 points off our turnovers. That’s the stat that stood out to me. … For the most part, I think we did a solid job on defense.”

They would then take a four-point lead via a Durant 3 at 7:04 to go and held control from there.

This follows what has essentially become the script of a 2024-25 Suns contest: Play somewhere between below average to above average basketball for the majority of the game, have an elite spurt somewhere in there and then win the game in crunch time.

Jusuf Nurkic had his best game of the season with 20 points and 18 rebounds. He played a role in a horrid 5-of-21 shooting night for Heat All-Star center Bam Adebayo.

Booker added 22 points and nine assists, and while Beal’s box score wasn’t pretty, this was another fantastic defensive game for him. He finished with seven points, two rebounds, three assists, two steals and two blocks.

Rookie Ryan Dunn knocked down his first two 3-point attempts, a great sign of his confidence not waning after failing to convert on his last nine shots from deep. Dunn, however, sprained his left ankle in the second half. He will be evaluated on Thursday.

Herro was nearly the star of the show with 28 points and was the standout performer before Durant’s closing act.

This is the fourth time in franchise history the Suns have started a season 7-1. A look down memory lane with this franchise is always fun because of how many sneaky good iterations the Suns have had.

The 1980-81 campaign was smack-dab in the middle of the very successful John MacLeod tenure on a team with three All-Stars: Walter Davis, Dennis Johnson and Truck Robinson. The 2000-01 Suns only had Penny Hardaway for four games in January but were still great through Jason Kidd in his prime, an ascending Shawn Marion and the always underrated Clifford Robinson. Lastly, the Western Conference finalists in 2009-10 was the last hurrah for the Seven Seconds or Less Steve Nash era.

The 1980 bunch rattled off the best Suns start ever, 11-1, and even went on to be 23-4. All three of those teams won at least 50 games.

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